A Comparison of Your Medical Choices

Just about everything in our lives has limits. Speed, alcohol consumption, patience, spending sprees. Health also has limits and it’s important to match your views and beliefs about your health with your health care choices. The sad thing is that many people do not realize or believe that they have health choices. But we do have choices and we need to exercise those choices more often and more effectively.

To help you with your choices, let me lay out the good, the bad and the ugly about health care options.

When I talk about health care options, I don’t mean types of insurance or which doctor you choose. I’m talking about philosophies and toolkits. So let’s dig in!

Conventional Medicine

This is the general term for the type of health care system that we have relied upon for most of the last 100 years. This includes medical doctors (MDs), medical clinics, hospitals, walk-in clinics and the insurance industry that lays the ground rules. Conventional medicine and the people that work within this system are bound by the system itself. The system is generally limited by what insurance companies will pay for and since they will always pay a lower compensation than the medical practitioner or facility asks for, it causes ever-rising rates for health care.

This also means that any practitioner, regardless of their experience, belief or philosophy, is forced to work within the system and cannot recommend anything that is not a part of the system. So when you see your doctor, he can only ask for certain tests to be run, has to refer you for anything that is not billable as general medicine and is limited in what he can say to you and how much time he can spend with you. He has to be able to justify everything he suggests, recommends or asks for. That is a lot of oversight that is both exhausting and defeating for many physicians who truly want to help people with their health.

Conventional medicine has a three step process and it will always work within this structure. First is evaluation which is the time he spends with you in order to decide step two. Step two is testing. This is the only way conventional medicine can decide what the diagnosis should be and since insurance is based on a diagnosis, this is the “label” that will determine everything that comes after the evaluation. So the testing is the path to the diagnosis. Step three is treatment and there are only three treatment options available to the medical system - surgery, pharmaceutical prescriptions and therapy. If what you are looking for is not one of those three things, then conventional medicine will not be able to help you.

I encourage patients to remember this and to use conventional medicine with intelligence and discretion. Going through evaluation and testing to reach a diagnosis is important because then you can decide what treatment you feel is appropriate for you. It also helps you in formulating questions and gives you some clues to investigate on your own. But remember that the diagnosis does not automatically require the treatment. Many treatments are options, not requirements and one important thing to remember is that time is a necessary ingredient to truly realize what is best for you. Unless you have been hit by a truck you always have time to ponder the right move for you.

Functional Medicine

This is a more recent phenomenon and includes medical doctors that have replaced much of the pharmaceutical medications they prescribe with more natural options. Now the important thing to remember here is that they are still on the same philosophical path - they are looking for a diagnosis and are still prescribing, since most of the “natural” medications they offer are synthetic supplements or less toxic variations of prescription medication.

They will be more open to alternative treatments such as acupuncture, bodywork, chiropractic care and nutrition, but will also not generally take insurance and will charge higher fees out of pocket.  Functional medical doctors will tend to spend more time with patients and be more inquiring about your diet, lifestyle and health care choices so their view of the body condition may be broader offering a greater measure of resolution for symptoms and conditions.  

Osteopathic Medicine

Begun in the late 1800’s, osteopathic medicine is an alternative form of medical care that focuses on supporting the body’s natural healing mechanisms and the effect that the musculoskeletal system has on health. This is a more comprehensive view of “fitness” and even though many osteopaths work within conventional medicine, they give more weight to the factors of diet, stress levels, physical fitness and bone alignment. In this way they can offer many of the same physical approaches that chiropractors do, along with attention to the organs and systems that are the basis of conventional medicine.

Naturopathic Medicine

This is a comprehensive approach to the body’s own healing mechanisms and supporting those processes with natural remedies that promote body function instead of suppress it. This reflects a key difference from the conventional medical view that symptoms are a sign that the body is doing something wrong and so the symptoms need to be stopped. This often does not leave space for the question of why. But in naturopathic medicine, the question of why the body is experiencing these symptoms is the foundation for resolving them. So it is a system that uses homeopathy, herbs, foods and therapies to support the body in resolving symptoms by creating balance and restoring health overall.  This process of support will often include detoxification or clearing of the burdens and toxins that can clog the body’s pathways while interfering with normal processes.  It is also a system that believes in the effects over time of emotional history, nutritional deficiency, unresolved injury and chronic stress, all of which can prevent the body’s own mechanisms of healing from functioning.

This also means that your body has tendencies and coping mechanisms that are learned over time which are important signposts to tell you what your inherent weaknesses are and what your body cannot do well without support.  So this approach is as much a personal education about your body as it is a method of health care.  All of this takes time, which means that naturopaths often include more frequent visits and longer time face to face.  Since this is an approach that supports the body’s mechanisms, a diagnosis of a disease or condition is not usually necessary.  It is more about understanding the why of symptoms.

Conclusion

To help with your health care choices, you need to know what your goals are and what you believe about your body. Often this means choosing practitioners that listen to you and listen to your instincts about your symptoms and your condition. Conventional medicine is great for emergencies but is the best option for your chronic headaches? Naturopathic medicine is wonderful for eliminating menstrual symptoms but may not be the best option for chronic back pain. Especially if you are facing more serious conditions such as cancer, you may want to combine disciplines because cancer is a truly complex and debilitating illness. But most importantly you need to search out health care options that help you learn about yourself, your tendencies, your habits, your needs and your body. Because knowing the why is the only way that long-term health can be sustained.